You were my new dream. And you were mine.
I present to you a drama, comedy, horror. This story killed me three times.
One of the first books I read in English as a kid, maybe 1 year after I started learning English, was a booklet with a title like, How to Have a Great Time at Summer Camp. I don’t remember the exact title and I know I only picked it up because the other books in English in my school’s library looked way beyond my level, stuff like Austen and Dickens. The summer camp booklet didn’t look too interesting but it was small with simple sentences. I ended up being fascinated with it because it was the most American thing I had ever got my hands on and it felt impossibly exotic
- all the kids had cool American names like Jill and Mike. One of them at one point talked about the “chipmunks” in the woods near the camp, a mysterious word that didn’t exist in my tiny English dictionary, and for some reason I pictured them as scrawny wolves. I had read Little House on the Prairie so I knew wolves were a major concern for Americans
- camp “counsellors” were often mentioned, and my pocket English dictionary only defined that word as “psychologue”. I thought it was weird how American summer camps had dozens of psychologists roaming the premises, one for every 5 to 10 kids. That felt like a lot of psychologists
- I had no idea that the word “pet” could mean “favourite”. When the booklet said one kid might become “the camp counsellor’s pet”, my dictionary helpfully led me to believe it meant that a psychologist would pick one unfortunate kid to be his domestic animal for the summer. Slightly disturbing. I moved on
- the kids slept in “bunks” and my stupid dictionary only defined this word as “couche”. Which is not wrong, but we would probably say couchette instead, or better yet lits superposés, and couche is also our word for diaper so you can see why I continued being deeply intrigued by every new detail I learnt in this booklet. American kids are excited about camp because they get to sleep in diapers
- I had never encountered the word “baseball” before but managed to guess it was some kind of sport, but when the booklet mentioned the “baseball diamond” (in the context of a kid saying the baseball diamond was big) I of course assumed it was an actual diamond that you could win if you won a game of baseball at camp. For some reason I had a debate with a classmate over the plausibility of this. I say for some reason because I didn’t really question the diapers or the wolves or the psychologists with their human pets. A diamond though? Doubt. I just remember that we were queueing up for lunch and I was like “What do you think?” and my friend said hesitantly, “Maybe if it’s a small diamond?” and I insisted “No! The book says it’s big!”
- among the basic items the book said every kid should bring to camp were “batteries”. I didn’t bother looking up that word in my dictionary seeing as it’s the same in French. I didn’t know it was a false friend, and I was impressed to learn that most American kids own a drum set and bring it to camp as an essential item
- on the same page, in the list of things every kid should put in their suitcase for summer camp, another item was “comic books”. I wasn’t sure what those were since in French we call them BD, but basing myself on the word “comic” I assumed they were books of jokes and puns. I loved learning that in the US all kids bring humour anthologies to summer camp, presumably because they worry about running out of funny things to say. I thought American kids sounded nervous and sweet. But also really cool, because of all the drums
“Men and boys are seen as the primary target of racial injustice,” AAPF associate director Rachel Gilmer told TakePart in May. “This has led to the idea that women and girls of color are not doing as bad, or that we’re not at risk at all.”
But studies show otherwise: Black women are killed and sexually assaulted by the police, and incarcerated at almost three times the rate of their white female counterparts. Yet news coverage of these cases are focused largely on the relationship between law enforcement and black men.
From the linked article above. None of this diminishes the importance of any Black Lives Matter protests or the lives of black men.
Knowledge =power
this is it. this is the single funniest coronavirus meme. what the mcfuck
Also:
in which i recommend books like the netflix algorithm
you wanted it, you got it, babes! caveat: this list is long (seriously, sorry about the length) and i can’t write blurbs for everything, but i highly recommend going and looking at anything that sounds interesting. some books will fall under multiple headings, so i’m listing them twice. i am linking to their purchase pages on bookshop.org, because amazon sucks and bookshop helps support indie booksellers, but if your local indie bookstore offers delivery or curbside pickup, buy it there. and i’m trying to keep this list confined to pretty recent titles, so even though a few older ones might slip in there, it’s definitely centered on releases from the past few years. okay let’s do this.
if you want a book that feels like a primal scream:
- godshot by chelsea bieker
- the book of joan by lidia yuknavitch
- girl, woman, other by bernadine evaristo
- her body and other parties by carmen maria machado (short stories)
- trust exercise by susan choi
- my dark vanessa by kate elizabeth russell
- the rehearsal by eleanor catton
- indelicacy by amina cain
- the answers by catherine lacey
- the mars room by rachel kushner
- the love affairs of nathaniel p. by adelle waldman
if you want clever social commentary and/or hilarious female protagonists:
- you too can have a body like mine by alexandra kleeman
- the new me by halle butler
- queenie by candice carty-williams
- prep by curtis sittenfeld
- the idiot by elif batumen
- my year of rest and relaxation by ottessa moshfegh
- oksana, behave! by maria kuznetsova
- where’d you go, bernadette by maria semple
- convenience store woman by sayaka murata
- nothing to see here by kevin wilson
- made for love by alissa nutting
- the pisces by melissa broder
- the herd by andrea bartz
if you want to start reading the unhinged women canon (not all recent):
- mrs. dalloway by virginia woolf
- the awakening by kate chopin
- we have always lived in the castle by shirley jackson
- gone girl by gillian flynn
- rebecca by daphne du maurier
- white oleander by janet fitch
- cousin bette by honore de balzac
- wide sargasso sea by jean rhys
- play it as it lays by joan didion
- the piano teacher by elfriede jelinek
- valley of the dolls by jacqueline susann
- postcards from the edge by carrie fisher
if you liked the secret history:
- if we were villains by m.l. rio
- social creature by tara isabelle burton
- the basic eight by daniel handler
- the incendiaries by r.o. kwon
- bunny by mona awad
- hex by rebecca dinerstein knight
if you like speculative/dystopian fiction:
- the dreamers by karen thompson walker
- the book of joan by lidia yuknavitch
- severance by lin ma
- gold fame citrus by claire vaye watkins
- the farm by joanne ramos
- followers by megan angelo
- the power by naomi alderman
- the glass hotel by emily st. john mandel
if you want a book that reads like a good fanfic:
- normal people by sally rooney
- fame adjacent by sarah skilton
- stay up with hugo best by erin somers
- the seven husbands of evelyn hugo by taylor jenkins reid
- circe by madeline miller
- the nobodies by liza palmer
- evvie drake starts over by linda holmes
if you like dark stories about complex relationships between women:
- my sister, the serial killer by oyinkan braithwaite
- baby teeth by zoje stage
- dare me by megan abbott
- eileen by ottessa moshfegh
- social creature by tara isabelle burton
- the worst kind of want by liska jacobs
- the girls by emma cline
- oligarchy by scarlett thomas
- devotion by madeline stevens
- baby by annaleese jochems
- marlena by julie buntin
- bunny by mona awad
- necessary people by anna pitoniak
if you like stories about complicated families:
- red at the bone by jacqueline woodson
- the care and feeding of ravenously hungry girls by anissa grey
- mostly dead things by kristen arnett
- bee season by myla goldberg
- bowlaway by elizabeth mccracken
- everything i never told you by celeste ng
- the nest by cynthia d’aprix sweeney
- the grammarians by cathleen schine
- ask again, yes by mary beth keane
if you like smart and thoughtful books about relationships between women:
- my brilliant friend and the neapolitan novels by elena ferrante
- such a fun age by kiley reid
- gingerbread by helen oyeyimi
- the female persuasion by meg wolitzer
- the burning girl by claire messud
- expectation by anna hope
- the animators by kayla rae whitaker
if you want something queer that isn’t YA:
- my education by susan choi
- permission by saskia vogel
- mostly dead things by kristen arnett
- real life by brandon taylor
- after dolores by sarah schulman
- patsy by nicole dennis-benn
- wilder girls by rory power
- enter the aardvark by jessica anthony
- less by andrew sean greer
- exciting times by naiose dolan
you just want something good and are willing to take a chance on one of these books i love (these are not all recent, i just like them a lot):
- dept. of speculation by jenny offill
- the interestings by meg wolitzer
- godshot by chelsea bieker
- play it as it lays by joan didion
- the bonfire of the vanities by tom wolfe
- wolf in white van by john darnielle
- things you would know if you grew up around here by nancy wayson dinan
- sex and rage by eve babitz
- wise blood by flannery o’connor
- leading men by christopher castellani
- saint x by alexis schaitkin
- the cosmopolitans by sarah schulman
- lake success by gary shteyngart
- odds against tomorrow by nathaniel rich
- the great believers by rebecca makkai
- good citizens need not fear by maria reva (short stories)
“Before the novel coronavirus engulfed the Chinese city of Wuhan, Fang Fang was already an award-winning novelist of realist fiction,” says our Beijing correspondent Emily Feng. “But her chronicle of the lockdown of her hometown Wuhan might be her most lasting work.” Find her full review here.
– Petra
From the first moment I met you, your arrogance and conceit, your selfish disdain for the feelings of others made me realize that you were the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry.
Pride and Prejudice (2005) dir. Joe Wright
hi tumblr
i’m happy and in love and it is incredibly disconcerting and bananas and yeah that’s all i have to say
i’m here to remind you all that the green bay packers are the only publicly owned team and their foundation recently made a sizable donation to planned parenthood, angering tons of their right-wing fans in Northern Wisconsin
Where the hell is our defense?